Best Way to Write VP of Sales Resume

A vice president of sales is a senior leadership role, this role is responsible for taking most of the company’s top-level decisions. Therefore, anyone applying for such a role must possess some key leadership and analytical skills to be considered for this position. Some important VP of sales skills include sales management, market positioning, sales growth, territory expansion, and many others. The resume should demonstrate a strategic vision, strong leadership skills, impeccable judgment, and the ability to execute complex plans. A VP of sales should also showcase their dynamic skills along with working in a fast-paced environment in their resume. 

 

Highlighting all these skills, accomplishments, and achievements on your resume in a professional manner is certainly a challenging task and skipping relevant details is not an option. Therefore knowing how to professionally adjust and highlight key skills is the only option. In order to help you create an excellent VP of sales resume, we have compiled some professional tips and tricks to help you stand out once you are done creating your resume. 

Five Professional Tips for Writing Vice President of Sales Resume

1. Relevant Experience

The experience section is certainly the most important section of your resume, however, you should only add experiences that are relevant to the position you are applying for. Career experts recommend that you add this section on top of your resume. 

As you very well know that VP of sales is a senior leadership role and therefore you should not add your first intern job experience where you worked as a manager’s assistant or when you were working as a high school teacher. You should also highlight your key technology-based experiences and certifications that you have learned along the way. 

2. Highlight the Right Skills

Highlight all the key skills you are an expert in that you found in the job description. If the company is looking for a VP of sales having an experience in sales and revenue growth then make sure you highlight this skill in the skill section of your resume. 

3. Quantifiable Achievements

As a VP in sales quantifiable achievement are your good friends. Big numbers, percentages, and every other quantifiable achievement should be highlighted in your resume. Remember to always use numbers wherever you can. 

• Writing this is not recommended:

• • • Improved annual sales and productivity per person.

• Instead, use this:

• • Improved average annual sales by 30% per year from $3M to $4.5M in 18 months per person.

4. ATS-Friendly CV

Hiring Managers working for huge tech and finance companies like Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and IBM receive thousands of job applications. Hiring managers cannot go through each and every job application therefore they use software like Applicant Tracking System (ATS). This Artificially Intelligent software goes through resumes and covers letters to shortlist the best candidates. 

This software mainly looks for the right keywords while shortlisting candidates. Therefore it is very important to enrich your resume with the right keywords. This software also scans, organizes, and ranks applicants based on what’s written on their CVs. 

If you want your VP of sales to resume past the ATS software then the key to this is Smart Keyword Usage. 

For instance, you should add keywords like “interpersonal skills”, “great communication skills”, “leadership skills”, and “team management skills”, if you want to go past the ATS while applying for a Vice President of Sales position.  

5. Impeccable Grammar and Proofreading Skills

Once you have completed your resume, it is now time to format and edit your resume. Most people undermine the importance of proofreading their resumes. A single grammatical mistake or punctuation error can send a negative impression to your potential employer and he/she may overlook every other detail after that.

You must proofread and edit your resume 2-3 times before finally submitting it for the employer to review. Having an error-less good-looking resume will certainly increase your chances of getting a call for an interview and getting your dream job. 

How to Write an Impressive Regional VP of Sales Resume: Step by Step Guide

To create an impressive VP of sales resume it is very important that you pay great attention to each and every part of your resume.

1. Choosing the Right Layout for the Resume 

Hiring managers spend an average of six to ten seconds scanning a resume and then decide if they actually want to read the whole thing or just skip to the next one. Choosing the right resume layout and theme can help you land a great first impression. The right layout will appeal to the hiring manager to read your complete resume. 

• Here are some more pointers to consider when formatting your resume:

1. Use reverse chronological order and start with the experience section on top.
2. Use bold digits to highlight key stats and numbers. 
3. Make different sections with adequate space between headings.
4. Use mobile-friendly font size – 11pt or higher is the best font size.
5. Use PDF format of your resume.

6. How To Write The Header of VP of Sales Resume

The header usually contains your basic contact information. This is the section that gets scanned first by employers and therefore includes all essential information.

• A Good Header contains the following information

• • It shows your main role/ core industry specialty
  • It does include your LinkedIn profile link
  • It contains both your phone number and email address

1. Job-Winning VP of Sales Resume Summary

Most people make a very big mistake of copy-pasting resume summaries from the internet. As we already discussed, hiring managers go through many resumes every day and they can quickly differentiate between copy-pasted and original content. It’s important to write a summary yourself and add in real-life sales accomplishments and the targets you have achieved while working for years in this field. 

Best Resume Summary Example for VP of Sales Resume

Motivated and experienced vice president of sales with more than 10 years of experience in managing clients in the IT industry. At [company name] I was able to increase sales which resulted in an overall profit of around $1M every year. Overall sales revenue for my previous employer increased by 30% in 2 years. I have proven experience in enhancing the sales cycle. I am also skilled at managing large teams and executing complex sales plans to enhance sales growth. I am currently seeking a challenging role and I am eager to start working right away with the aim to add value to the team by utilizing my skills and abilities to enhance sales and revenue growth. 

EXPERT TIP

While writing a resume summary for the position of VP of sales make sure that you mention your overall experience, at least one big number regarding your sales achievement, and some of your proven leadership skills.

1. Resume Formatting

Now comes the section everyone is always worried about. Most people make a major mistake of formatting their VP of sales resume with Education on top. Always remember that a VP of sales resume should always begin with Work Experience on top. It should then be followed up with the Education section, skills section, and the achievements and accomplishments section. 

Here’s how to professionally format your Vice President of Sales Resume:

• Work Experience Section

While experience your work experience section always mention the most relevant job experience that you have, even if it’s not the most recent experience. Emphasize two main bullet points while explaining your job role

• Your leadership background
• Your sales achievements

The work experience section should make the bulk of a VP of sales resume, but this doesn’t mean that you can add more than 4-6 bullet points per job. 

• Do not repeat an accomplishment multiple times until absolutely necessary. 
• Mention all company names, company niche, and the duration of every job.

Here are some common bullet points that you can add to your VP of Sales Resume:

• • Maintained operation for six offices and oversaw facets for 4 out of 6 state divisions and realized gains in sales even when the market conditions were difficult. 
    • This is one of the strongest bullet points that you can start with, it shows how much you were managing and what did you achieve.
  • Created a new sales strategy and implemented it in two divisions and quantified the effectiveness of that strategy. Extended the new marketing strategy to all divisions because of exceptional improvement in sales growth and revenue. 
    • This shows that as a VP of Sales you can create new strategies and then also implement them hence showcasing your strong leadership skills.
  • Created a strategic alliance in new markets to enhance market penetration helping our products to penetrate the market without any great competition. 
    • This shows that as a leader you can negotiate terms and form alliances with other company owners as well to gain new grounds.
  • Consistently overachieved monthly, quarterly, and yearly sales targets and enhanced them for XX% to XX% in XX time. 
• This bullet point shows some of your measurable achievements and accomplishments, hence helping your resume to stand out in the eyes of the hiring managers. 

• Education Section

The education section is also very important as it shows your highest degree as well as the institutes and universities you have attended. A bachelor’s degree in business, marketing, or finance along with a master’s in a similar niche is required for a senior leadership role like the VP of sales.

Your education section should include:

• Names of institutes/universities you attended during your academic career.
• Name of programs.
• Duration of programs along with starting and ending dates.
• The type of degree you received.
• Your GPA (only mention this if it was very good)

• Skills Section

As we mentioned earlier that hiring managers now use ATS (Applicant Tracking System) software to shortlist candidates. The ATS software shortlists candidates based on the keywords in their resumes. Therefore it is important to mention all the right skills that you have to go past the ATS software. Some of the most common VP of sales skills you should include in your resume are:

• Territory Growth
• Sales Growth
• Marketing Positioning Strategy
• Project Alliances
• Growth Strategy Implementation
• Contract Negotiations
• Sales Growth 
• Brand Image
• Team Training 
• Executing Complex Strategies
• Team Leadership
• Cost Savings
• Profitability

You can also add the following section to your resume

• Language skills
• Hobbies and interests
• Projects
• Volunteer work
• Highlights
• References

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Take Help from Experts: Resume That Works!

Investing a little time and money to take the next step in your career won’t hurt you. Here at ResumeThatWorks, we have a team of career experts along with resume writing professionals who can help you create a VP of sales resume masterpiece that will help you get a call for an interview from your dream employer. 

Our team comprises highly qualified and experienced professionals who understand what it takes to create the best VP of sales resume. Therefore we recommend that you take help from our experts and make the job switching process easier and more progressive!